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Comment by chakerb | Hacker News Reader

It affects how much salary we get paid, what language we speak, what we eat ...etc. Why is that any different?

Because in 2021, culture is global. Your examples also don't really make any analogous sense, at all. You are free to learn whichever language you want. Under the corporate geofencing intellectual property regime, you are not free to watch whatever films you want. That is the issue.

To a recent years, lot of films where banned where I live and watching any of them is a felony! So location indeed affect what you're allowed to watch regardless of whether it's under geofencing intellectual property or another thing.

To be clear I wish I lived in a world where I can legally watch everything without a hassle. But there's no such world like that regardless of how much we want to exist. The same way there's no such world where we get paid equally ( doing the same work obviously) because we're living in different locations/countries!

> To a recent years, lot of films where banned

We are not talking about films which are specifically banned, or content which is generally illegal. We are talking about content that is 'normative' and generally legal around the world, but is artificially restricted based on geofencing.

For example, attempting to watch a film that is legal both in Country A and Country B, but not being able to because of the region you are logging into Netflix from.

There is no intellectual consistency in what you're saying, at all. Freedom of Speech is only an actual guarantee (at least in text) in one country. And the electrons/bits in the wire obey physics like every other item the GP mentioned and as a result, are subject to the same political and physical forces that reflect in their regionally relative price.

What they are saying has nothing to do with rules or regulations. If the content of Barney is legal to watch in Canada, and the USA, there is no reason the show shouldn't be available to watch in both countries

> Freedom of Speech is only an actual guarantee (at least in text) in one country.

Plenty of countries have freedom of speech rights in text: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country

In Sweden I can't even pick English subtitles on some streaming services. I prefer that to Swedish, but noooo.

Last I checked Apple TV doesn't even list the languages their subtitles are available in before renting/buying movies. Frankly this is just plain idiotic. I rented Parasite, but my girlfriend couldn't really watch it, since she doesn't speak Swedish. It's such an obvious piece of information they should provide. (And even if it's not obvious, I did email them letting them know. Somehow I doubt my feedback will come to use.)

If you live in the US, going on vacation to Europe doesn't affect how much salary you get paid or what language you speak, but it does impact the content you are allowed to watch.

In EU Netflix doesn't change the content now immediately. I was on a holiday recently and kept seeing the home content on Netflix.

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/24853#

Yes, that’s true if you only move within the EU. Has been the case for a few years now, also with other streaming services, due to new EU portability laws.

It's so silly. They could at least make it clear - I forgot about it on holiday in Canada, watched a couple of episodes of a series (enough to get into it), returned home to the UK and it wasn't there. I didn't realise until then that would happen; I hadn't even remembered that it was a possibility.

“If you live in the US, going on vacation to Europe doesn't affect [...] what language you speak”

So the stereotype is accurate?

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